Stories of brain cancer, starting with our own

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brain cancer awareness

This article makes a really good case for big data analytics in medicine. (Which is the heart of what we are working on.) It essentially says that we all have gene mutations making us each much more unique than scientists previously thought. It is really only through compiling vast numbers that we might be able to see some patterns emerge.
This applies to cancer research, but it can also apply to all sorts of other medical conditions. Have you ever had a doctor tell you that your response to a drug shouldn’t cause the reaction it caused it caused in you? That’s kind of the same thing. A drug might do different things to you than to other people because of your unique genomic composition. If you’ve ever dealt with a reaction like this, you know how frustrating it can be. Now imagine your reaction is the difference between life and death. Pretty important, right?
We are laying the groundwork that will help people navigate these situations. Chances are, it will be you or someone you love that needs the answers. Help us now, so we can help you later.

Today is the halfway point in the Revlon Love is On Challenge. We have raised over $21,000, which far exceeds any online fundraising we have done for Dragon Master Foundation in the past. It shows that we are growing as a foundation and that people are starting to really understand and support our mission. I really wanted us to be at $50,000 by the end of the day today, though. Hitting $50,000 today would mean that we have a guaranteed pitch meeting with Revlon to promote Cavatica — an open access data platform that will dramatically improve the cancer research process. We have until midnight. I haven’t given up hope.

My heart may be broken, but I don’t want yours to be.

There are literally thousands of people who have the potential to read this message. If each of them donated only $10, we would far exceed our goal. There are many times in this life that we are helpless. We sit and watch as good people die from a disease that seems unstoppable. I’m here to tell you that it is stoppable. We are seeing breakthroughs with precision medicine efforts, but if we want them for everyone we must take action. Precision medicine initiatives are only as good as the data that drives them. You’ve seen the photos. Right now, a family sits with their child knowing there is nothing else to be done. For those of us who have been there, there is nothing we wouldn’t do to keep you from knowing that pain. Wives continue on without their husbands because a nasty beast stole them away right in their prime. Children grow up without mothers because cancer stole them from their family.

This project has the potential to help all of mankind. I don’t expect you to devote your life to it. I know you have jobs and kids and other responsibilities. All I’m asking is that you realize what an amazing opportunity this could be for all of us, and maybe skip that extra meal out this week. Donate two days worth of Starbucks to our cause — TODAY. I promise you we will make the very most out of that donation.

This week has renewed my faith in humanity. It’s so easy to sit by and watch the world slowly spiral out of control, but it’s really not hard to make it stand still, either. when you are told there is nothing more they can do for you loved one, be it your child, your mother or your husband, your world stops. But only for a moment, and then it starts falling. The more time that passes, the faster it goes. You’re hurtling toward an abyss with nothing to slow you down. With a lot of help, this week, we were able to slow that time down for a family who is so desperately looking for a cure.

Orlando is a sweet 11 year old boy who lives in our hometown. He has two sisters and a brother, and a family who loves him very much. And the local doctors told the family it was time for him to go on hospice. No more options. But that wasn’t acceptable to his mom, Lacy. She kept searching for a way to save Orlando. There are no guarantees in the fight against brain cancer, but she found a treatment that offers Orlando some hope. Some more time. But that treatment was half a country away.

Dr. Santosh Kesari has been working with brain cancer patients for his entire career. From Harvard to UCSD, he has gone where the research took him, searching for better treatments for people with brain cancer, specifically glioblastoma multiforme, which is what Orlando has. In the past few years, he’s had some success with a drug called Everolimus. Everolimus (Afinitor Disperz) got accelerated approval for subependymal giant cell astrocytoma is adults and children in 2012. Afinitor Disperz is the first pediatric formulation to be approved by FDA for the treatment of a tumor that occurs primarily during childhood. (In layman’s terms, astrocytomas turn into glioblastoma multiforme, so that is why this drug is a possibility.)

I know it seems like something that has been FDA approved since 2012 should be common knowledge, but the 5 year study results haven’t been out that long. (Five year study results: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26381530) With brain cancer, you really need a doctor who is paying attention to the very latest studies to try and gain as much quality time for the patient as possible. Dr. Kesari isn’t just paying attention – he’s one of the ones paving the way.

But finding a possible treatment is just the first step. Dr. Kesari needs to evaluate Orlando in person to make sure this is indeed a viable treatment option for him. (All other labs and scans would indicate that it is.)

With brain cancer, the clock is such an enemy, but treatments like this give us real reason for hope. On Orlando’s behalf, we reached out to the community for help to get him and his mom to California to see Dr. Kesari. Thanks to Brad Pistotnik Law and a very generous offer of the use of a jet, we will be able to get Orlando and his mom to Santa Monica on Monday. We found out yesterday that there is enough room for Orlando’s sister to go, too, and we are so happy that she will be able to be there and give him moral support. They are only 15 months apart, and they are very close.

There will be additional expenses for this family while they are split up trying to care for Orlando and his siblings. Dad is staying in Kansas with the two youngest children, but he works so they need additional childcare. Orlando’s meals will be at the hospital, but there is no coverage for his mom and sister for food. Also, this is an “out of network” hospital, so there will be higher medical bills.

Dragon Master Foundation recently adopted a change in our bylaws to be able to help families in this situation. A brain cancer patient can be sponsored by a person or community, and donations can be raised to directly help that person. The first person to benefit from this new program is Orlando. If you would like to help the family with expenses, you can text the word “cancer” to 91999.

If you can’t help financially, please share this story and join our Thunderclap, an effort to help win a million dollars for cancer research. You can join the Thunderclap here: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/44920-love-is-on-to-conquer-cancer

Like a rollercoaster as the last car eases over the top of the hill, we are hurtling forward after what felt like slow movement. The projects that we have been working on for the last three years are picking up speed. We have said all along that the way to change cancer research is through greater collaboration, and that message was loud and clear at this month’s Cancer Moonshot Summit at Howard University. There was an extremely diverse group of cancer research advocates brought together to hear Vice President Biden’s ideas and then work together to share our own ideas for how to bring about 10 years worth of change in the next five years. I think that idea might have scared some people, but we have already seen amazing advances using the Cavatica platform, so we know that kind of rapid improvement is possible.

I know that there were many events held around the country, and we even hosted an event at WSU in Wichita, but many of you may not have had a chance to really see what happened during the day of the Summit. I wanted to give you my perspective on the day, and I hope it fills you with the kind of hope I have for the future of cancer and disease research.

We started the morning with American icon Carol Burnett. She was delightful, as always, and the fact that she took the time to be there with us spoke volumes about how amazing this effort really is. Vice President Biden shared some of his frustration with us over costs and lack of progress, and we learned about some of the goals of the Cancer Moonshot initiative from Dr. Danielle Carnival, Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Director of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force.

There were several other speakers, all of whom underscored the need for this important gathering and continuing effort by the community. We broke into work sessions for the morning, and I was placed in the “Solving the Technical Challenges to Unleash the Power of Data” group. That was no big surprise!

I was incredibly humbled by the people in my workgroup. From industry veterans who have been working on making genomic data available like Warren Kibbe to bright, young innovators like Daniel Wagner who are challenging the way we look at and access the data. It was a fast-paced discussion that resulted in some great ideas.

We all returned to the general session for lunch where we could share ideas in a less-formatted way. I had the great pleasure of sitting with Dr. Charles Powell from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Our discussions covered everything from rare forms of Mesothelioma to the latest imaging technologies. There’s nothing quite like watching a doctor get a look at new technology that will help him do his job more effectively, and I had the pleasure of watching that at lunch. It is simply amazing what we are gaining access to through new technologies. We got a great look at how Siemen’s is turning analog scans into digital data that can be used for comparative analytics. That will be great in Cavatica!

After lunch, we heard some great speakers who spoke about collaboration. I think some of these were available on the live broadcasts, and they are available for viewing here:

Then we were off to our afternoon workgroup sessions. My session was on “Data: To What End?” and our insightful speaker to start the session was none other than David Agus.

We talked about existing collaborations, and I finally had a chance to mention Cavatica, the sharing platform we have been funding. The attendees seemed a little stunned that we already have 10 hospitals not only sharing digital data, but biosamples as well. There was still some sentiment among event attendees that it would be hard to get scientists to share their pre-publication data, but the doctors at the 10 Cavatica institutions are truly putting children, and indeed all humans, first. This level of collaboration may be unprecedented, but it is the wave of the future and that was evident from the number of people looking to learn more about our platform. I was so honored to be able to share about the many hospitals and nonprofits who have come together to build this amazing resource. I believe it could be the model by which all future research is done.

After a pretty exhilarating working group, we returned to the main hall to hear Greg Simon, Executive Director of the Cancer Moonshot. Dr. Adam Resnick and I got to speak with him for a few minutes after the event was over, and I felt like he was truly trying to pull together all the resources he can to make the end of cancer a reality in our lifetime.

The event ended with Dr. Biden and the VP Biden speaking to the crowd and asking for a prolonged commitment to working together for cures. I believe we have that commitment from everyone that attended this important event.

We returned home to find out that we have been accepted into the Revlon “Love Is On” Challenge. This is an amazing opportunity, not only to raise much needed funding for the research platform, but also to raise awareness for the platform and explain how it can improve research around the world. You’ll be hearing a lot from us about this, but there are two things you can do right now to make a huge difference:

Sign up for our Thunderclap to announce the contest. We’ve used this before, and it is quick and easy. You give one-time permission to Thunderclap to send out a message on our behalf. The message will ask people to support Dragon Master Foundation in the “Love Is On” Challenge. Sign up here: http://thndr.me/ukBgiJ

Sign up as a fundraiser for the “Love Is On” Challenge. This will give you a fundraising page of your own, which will allow you to easily share the challenge with your friends and family. We are asking that everyone make a minimum $10 donation because that is what is needed to count for the contest. Those $10 donations could easily be turned into ONE MILLION DOLLARS if we win the contest. We’ve won social media contests like this before, so we know with your help we can do it again.

Starting a foundation is expensive. We spent thousands of our own dollars to get the foundation up and running, and even now, our board members regularly pay for things out of their own pockets so that the expense doesn’t fall to the foundation. To date, we have donated over $100,000 toward building this shared database. Our board and our supporters have generously helped us get to where we are today, and we have an exciting opportunity just before us that I thought you might want to help with.

You see, we make connections with people around the world. Telling them about our data sharing project with CBTTC and asking them to help. Our foundation has brought many new voices to the conversation, and that conversation is about to happen in person with at least 15 hospitals and foundations. It’s an expense for the foundation, and we would love your help in sending some of our board members to participate in this momentous event. We need to fly to New Orleans and spend a couple of nights in a hotel. The conference is paying for some of the meals, and typically our board members pay for their own meals while traveling, so that isn’t part of the expense. We are also only covering part of the cost of their flight because we want them to all have a personal commitment to the event. We will have a full day of meetings followed by an evening of discussion. We are taking a videographer with us who can help us share the story of what happens with all of you.

If you believe that our collaborations are making a difference, please help us get our board to this conference. Every donation to this campaign will be used to further the conversation about the importance of sharing data between hospitals. We’d like to take some branded items with us to help folks remember who we are and be able to reach back out to us as they have more questions after the event. Here’s a breakdown of what I think the expenses will be:

Promotional items $500

Expenses per attendee:

Flights $500

Hotel $480

We have eight people who will take time off work to attend this event with us, so that would be $7,840, plus the $500, for a total of $8,340. That’s not including ticket fees, etc, so I’m setting the goal at $9,000.

We’ve talked a lot about open access. You hear more and more about the patient experience on the news. All of those words are good, but for the most part, the world is still segregated into the medical community and the rest of the world. This conference is changing that. We will have a room full of passionate advocates sitting side-by-side with the doctors and researchers who need our help. We are building a global team to fight this war on cancer.

Want to help? We value every contribution! You can see our individual fundraisers and make a donation here.

(Please note that they are just now setting up their pages, so there may be a few more pages appearing over the next few days.)

I had big plans to be super organized heading into May this year, but for various reasons, it just didn’t happen. So here we are, on May 4th (Star Wars Day!), and I’m just now making a post about all the ways you can get involved this month. There was a big event on May 1st in DC, Race for Hope, so I’m sorry for not getting word out to all of you in time to participate in that. It was only the first of many events this month, though, so without further delay, here are some ways you can get involved:

Wear gray. It’s the most simple way to show your support. Grey is a pretty bland color, though, so to really get people’s attention, you might need to draw some attention to yourself. Maybe some crazy hair, or a Hawaiian shirt on top of your grey… something te get people wondering what’s going on with you. 😉 You can even take a gray selfie and enter to win a prize!

Support on online fundraiser. Maybe you’re busy. We get that. So skip coffee or drinks for one day and donate that money to an online fundraiser. You can find some worthy places to donate at these links:

Go to an event! This one is a little bit trickier because the events are in specific geographic locations, but if you can make it to one, please do! The folks that organize these events put a lot of hard work into them, and it physical events can be a real boost for survivors. I’m listing the ones I could find by date and then location.

Cancer can be one of life’s most difficult challenges. It has brought more pain to my life than I care to remember, but it has also given me great awareness of the little moments in life. I think it teaches a lot of people about gratitude, frequently in ways we wouldn’t imagine. I know trying to imagine what it is like to live with a cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming, especially if you think about it being your child or other loved one. It’s sad and scary, and well, I don’t want to think about it either. But I do want to bring attention to the need for research. I want you to think about ways we can cure cancer. I want you to think about it all the time – like those of us who have been faced with it in our daily lives.

But how can we think about it, and act on it, without being overwhelmed by it? After talking with a lot of folks, I think I found a way to shed some positive light on the issue. We’re going to start a sort of gratitude journal, where we can focus on those little moments that are good, that are special because they are so normal. We want you to see how grateful cancer patients and their families are for those little things.

So here’s what I need from you. I need you to start sharing those moments with me, so that Dragon Master Foundation can share them with the world. We’re going to call them #MomentsofMagic . They can be anything you want – as long as it was a moment that was special to you as a cancer warrior, caregiver, loved one or friend. We’d love to share pictures with the stories as well, so send whatever you would like to share to amanda.haddock (at)dragonmasterfoundation.org.

Together, we can focus on the positive. As Dumbledore would say, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

We stumbled across another online competition. This one is for $5,000, but it ends on Sunday! Since Sunday is Valentine’s Day, this seems like the perfect chance to share your love with someone in a very meaningful way.

The app is free, but it is only for iPhone users running OS 8.1. That limits the pool of potential helpers a little bit, so we are depending on all of you to help us spread the word. The app is pretty straight forward, but I’ve had several people ask questions, so here’s a quick walk-through:
1. They download the Small Token app.
2. Launch the app & click “Give A Gift”

3. Enter the email address of the person they want to honor.
4. Choose Dragon Master Foundation as the nonprofit (Type in “Dragon Master” and you get it)
5. Enter an amount. $1 is fine!!
6. Schedule the delivery – anytime between now and any future date.
7. Enter a personal message. It can be a thank you, a Valentine wish – anything!
8. Hit “preview”
9. You will see an orange screen with a heart. At the bottom, you can hit “edit look” to change the color and the icon. Pick what you like, then hit done.
10. Hit “continue” & you will be directed to Give Lively where you can enter your payment information. After you enter your info, click the donate button.
11. You will get a Thank You message, and you are all done!!

I know that looks like a lot of steps, but really it is pretty simple.

Please go enter a donation today and actively encourage others to do the same. We just started last night, and we’ve gotten over $100 in donations already, so it is worth a few minutes of your time.

If you would like to help spread the word on social media, here are some possible tweets:
Pls download @SmallTokenApp and send a greeting to help @DragonMasterFdn win $5,000. #charity with the highest # of donors wins.

Thank someone today by donating to @DragonMasterFdn in their name w/@SmallTokenApp. You could help us win $5,000! #endcancer

Help win $5k for #research 7& give a #cancer warrior a smile by donating to @dragonmasterfdn & sending a greeting through @smalltokenapp!

Brain Cancer Awareness Month is, at best, bittersweet. A time for us to bring awareness to a disease that takes a devastating toll on families. It is a time for us to celebrate the victories of those who are living with this disease and at time for us to remember those who were taken by it.

I will be posting a lot this month about the brain cancer warriors who have crossed my path, and I will try to bring awareness to the disease and to events happening around the country. Everyone can wear grey and talk about brain cancer awareness month, but hopefully, by posting this list, you may also be able to find an event near you to attend. Please also consider changing your social media images to a grey awareness picture. If you Tweet, I’d love to connect with you on Twitter. Tweet me at @AmandaHaddock and you can use hashtags #btam (for brain tumor awareness month) and #BrainTumorThursday – a day each week throughout the year that we raise awareness.

If you know of an event that isn’t on the list, please message me so I can add it. I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding events all month, so please bookmark this list and check back!

Anywhere
May 8 – Go Grey for a Day – Make sure you wear grey on this day and tell people that you are doing it for brain tumor/cancer awareness

May 15 – Webinar to learn about the latest in collaborative brain cancer research – http://bit.ly/1dLwolc

Look for ways you can contribute to your favorite organizations every day. There are too many organizations to list all the possibilities, but here are some ways you could help Dragon Master Foundation:
– Following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest
– Choosing us when you shop on AmazonSmile
– Recycling for us with our free shipping program
– Register your Dillons card using our #11547 – a lot of grocery stores have this option. If you don’t see your favorite foundation listed, tell them, so they can get signed up!
– Do your intent shopping with iGive

Also, check your favorite foundation’s website for other promotions that may be happening. For example, Dragon Master Foundation has the opportunity to win a unique piece of dragon art created just for the foundation! Check it out here.

Ok, now for a state by state listing of activities you can participate in:

You make note of many firsts. Baby’s first steps. First day of school. First job. First anniversary. They are almost always happy occasions. But today I am trying to find a way to honor a first that is not happy. It’s heartbreaking and yet it means so much that I can not let it go by without acknowledgement.

Yesterday, I found out about a brain cancer warrior that has moved on from this world. His family and friends will have to learn to live without his sweet presence every day. It is a first for me because they have asked that memorial donations be made to Dragon Master Foundation. This is the first time that I’m aware of this happening, and I don’t know what to say. How do you thank someone for such a selfless gift? They’ve wrapped up all their love and lifted it as an offering in honor of Wilson. They believe in us enough to put it out there to the world that they want his life honored through contributions to an effort to save others.

This is such a significant thing to me. I’m humbled. I’m in tears. And I’m so very determined to put an end to cancer. For Wilson. For David. For all the warriors still in this fight. We won’t let you down.